charles, bring it round to the fiscal cliff because it's all interwoven here. it's all about basically where should government be spending money, where should cuts be made, and who ends up paying the lion's share of this. my sense is this will not go over the cliff and the reason it won't is that public opinion is now raging so hard against the republicans in all the polls that you see, they've lost the argument so why go over a cliff and make it worse for yourselves. >> i think you're right about that, because all of the polls i've seen say exactly what you're saying which is that the republicans will be blamed if we go over the cliff. but the first part of your question i think is the more crucial part of the question, which is how do you not cut off your nose to spite your face. if you do things, you make cuts that harm children who need to learn, who need to be able to go to school on a full stomach and be able to stay a whole day and have programs that will allow them to be competitive with children in china and india, if you need that to be a real situati